Perspective
by Alex Voy
Summary: Janeway's influence extends further than she might have imagined.


Title: Perspective

Author: Alex Voy  
  
Summary: Janeway's influence extends further than she might have imagined.  
  
Disclaimer: Paramount owns the characters and Voyager. No infringement of copyright is intended.  
  
Acknowledgements: Special thanks to Kelly for beta-reading this story -- any remaining mistakes are mine alone.

Perspective 

"You will show the Lord Bragos your best works." The Factor looked at me with distaste. "He desires paintings and sculptures of great beauty to enhance the rooms of his new palace."  
  
The Lord Bragos stood just inside the entrance to my gallery, with three armed lackeys and an air of bored indifference.  
  
I stepped back at a respectful distance while the Lord and his retinue viewed the paintings on my walls and the sculptures I had collected from distant lands.  
  
I am a craftsman and a businessman. With some good fortune and considerable hard work, I have been able to maintain my own gallery, but it has not been easy without the advantage of a wealthy patron. The Lord Bragos is the richest man in the province. I have seen his new palace rise on the heights above the capital, close to the rim of the shield dome: a vast, gleaming white monument to the glory of wealth and power. If my art should please him, my future could be assured.  
  
When they had seen all that I had on display, the Lord Bragos waved a dismissive hand in my direction. The Factor took me by the arm.  
  
"The Lord Bragos is bored by these minor works. He sees nothing here that is of sufficient beauty to grace the walls of his palace. He is seeking something more... exotic; something less ordinary than these daubs."  
  
I looked into the man's eyes that were the colour of tidal mud and said: "If the Lord Bragos has a taste for works of more uncommon subjects, then I may be able to show him something of interest."  
  
I led the way down into the basement. The Factor and Bragos followed without their attendants. A few paintings were displayed on the walls, but most were stacked in racks that stretched from floor to the vaulted ceiling above. I took out a selection of canvases from one of the racks and laid them against the wall.  
  
Bragos walked slowly along the row of paintings, occasionally stopping to peer closely at the contorted limbs and naked flesh of the subjects. He pointed to three of the pictures, and the Factor said:  
  
"The Lord Bragos will buy these. Have them delivered to his palace by this evening."  
  
I made a note of the titles. I had judged well in my assessment of Bragos's character. The subjects of the paintings were not something I would have dared to display in public. I wondered if their new owner would defy convention enough to hang them in the public areas of his palace. Or would he hoard them in some secret place where he could savour them alone and at his pleasure?  
  
I had learned early in my sales career that a stock of erotic subjects offered to carefully chosen customers could mean the difference between a precarious living and a comfortable life-style. It was a small compromise – not strictly illegal, although certainly frowned upon by the authorities. I saw no harm in letting my customers look at what they pleased. And it provided for some insurance against troubled times.  
  
"What's this?"  
  
I was startled when Bragos finally spoke directly to me. I looked up at the painting he indicated. It had hung on the walls of my gallery for more than twenty years. It was a portrait of a woman, fully clothed, and totally unlike anything else in the room.  
  
"It is a commissioned work, my lord; not for sale."  
  
Bragos examined the painting more closely. "It bears your mark. Did you paint this?"  
  
I hesitated, and Bragos turned to face me, his eyes glittering from narrow slits.  
  
"Yes, my lord," I admitted. "It was painted before my accident."  
  
Bragos looked at my misshapen hand and grunted. "I will buy the painting."  
  
"I'm sorry." My heart pounded in my chest, the sound of blood rushed through my head. I stammered, but tried to speak with composure. "I am not able to sell a work that has been commissioned by another patron."  
  
"The date on this painting is twenty years ago. Why hasn't it been claimed by whoever commissioned it?"  
  
"The owner asked me to store it until he could return to collect it." Not quite true, but not an outright lie, either.  
  
Bragos turned back to the painting and studied it carefully.  
  
I too looked at the face of the woman who had adorned my walls for more than a third of my lifetime.  
  
It was undoubtedly the best work I have ever done. I am not a great artist. My paintings will never hang in the halls of fame for future generations to admire. I am a competent craftsman who produced a body of work that satisfied the cravings of wealthy merchants and traders, at a time when it was fashionable for them to have a likeness of their loved ones recorded by the hand of an artist. Holographic images were more accurate, but less aesthetically pleasing to those with pretensions to social status.  
  
I looked on the face of the woman I had painted all those years ago, and wondered why she had such an attraction, even for Bragos, surrounded as he was by scenes of blatant sexual debauchery.  
  
She was not a young woman. Not beautiful by any accepted standards. Her clothing was not simply modest; it was masculine, with more than a hint of the military about it. Her hair, a rich umber with a touch of copper, was pinned up behind in a style that was almost severe. There was arrogance in the carriage of her head, which, combined with the determined set of her strong jawline, should have made her an unattractive subject for an artist.  
  
But it was the eyes that drew the attention. Her eyes and the faint, twisted smile made this woman and this painting so special. I remember even now, how I struggled for days to capture the likeness: to put depth and soul onto canvas with pigment and oil. I painted and re-painted a dozen times or more before I achieved something that came even close to recreating the essence of what was in those eyes. Authority and determination were tempered by compassion and a hint of some secret sadness, all captured and displayed by a few strokes of the brush in the colour of the smoked blue moonstone Bragos wore in his seal ring.  
  
Bragos's voice interrupted my thoughts. "You will deliver this painting with the others to my palace. If the man who commissioned it should ever return, refer him to me."  
  
Bragos and his Factor moved up the steps, their rich velvet cloaks brushing a fine dust from the stone surface.  
  
I watched them go and then turned back to the portrait. Her eyes mocked me for the coward I am.  
  
I remembered the first time I saw her in my studio so many years ago. The man who brought her image was a foreigner, of a race I had never seen before or since. He was a big man: not particularly tall, but broad and strong. His features were regular, his skin an unusual light copper colour, but the most distinctive thing about him was the linear markings on his face – a symbol of some kind, imprinted onto his forehead above one eyebrow. His clothing was rough: a leather jerkin over coarse peasant trousers. I took him for a barbarian: a blockade-runner, perhaps, or a mercenary working for one of the warlords. He wore a weapon in his belt and an aura of quiet desperation.  
  
At the time, I was going through one of my lean periods. Our province was at war. The merchants were hoarding their wealth rather than investing in art. I desperately needed a commission, any commission. So, I invited the man into my studio, even though I doubted he had the credits to buy more than a few nights' lodging. For a barbarian, he had some sophisticated technology. His weapon was an unfamiliar design, and he produced a data chip containing a hologram.  
  
The image, when activated, was of poor quality. A woman, dressed in a black uniform with red facings, was fragmented and distorted by jagged interference.  
  
"Can you do it?" the man asked quietly. "Can you paint her from this image?"  
  
"It will cost at least three thousand credits." I replied. I owed the landlord half that amount in rent, and my other creditors were closing in. I had little hope my visitor could afford to buy even a rough charcoal sketch.  
  
The man took a leather pouch from inside his jerkin and poured out some coloured pebbles onto the table. "Will these be sufficient?"  
  
The breath caught in my throat as I picked up the nearest stone and held it up to the afternoon sunlight. Delicate pink fire danced deep within the dull, soapy exterior. I realised the man must be a smuggler, though how he had acquired stones of such quality, I could not imagine. One stone would have paid my rent for the next ten years.  
  
I considered the idea of taking the majority of the stones, assuming the man was a fool, or just an ignorant barbarian who had probably stolen them without any idea of their true value. He watched me in silence, and I dismissed the thought.  
  
Reluctantly, I took two of the stones.  
  
"These will be more than sufficient."  
  
"How long will it take?" he asked as he replaced the rest of the stones in the pouch.  
  
"A month or so."  
  
"A month?" He looked up, and suddenly, I was thankful I had not been seriously tempted to cheat him of his wealth. "Another two stones if I take delivery at the end of the week."  
  
Two more stones represented more credits than I could hope to earn in a lifetime of painting. I nodded. "The end of the week. Five days is not long." I reached for the data chip. "Come back in the evening of the fifth day, when the surface sealant has had a chance to dry."  
  
His hand closed over the chip. "This doesn't leave my sight."  
  
"But, I can't paint a likeness without a model."  
  
"Make sketches. I'll wait." He stared at me, his eyes black and dangerous.  
  
"I can't paint a portrait from sketches alone."  
  
It was impossible, even for the price of four gemstones.  
  
He was silent for a moment. "I'll bring the chip each day for you to study the image."  
  
"I don't like to be watched while I work."  
  
"Then I will find an artist who does," he said quietly.  
  
"All right." I conceded defeat. For those stones, he could watch every brush stroke.  
  
I made several sketches that evening, struggling to put onto paper an impression of the grainy, uneven holo-image. The man watched the movement of my hand as the charcoal smeared across the surface of the sketching block. His eyes followed every stroke with hungry, silent concentration. At least he didn't distract me from my task with idle conversation.  
  
The fragmented nature of the image meant I had to work with a model that was constantly moving and changing. After several hours of frustration, I had still not succeeded in producing even a rough sketch that satisfied me. The nature of this woman was still as unknown to me at the end of the evening as it had been when I drew the first strokes of charcoal.  
  
"Can you freeze the image at a moment when it's complete?" I finally asked my new patron.  
  
"It's too badly damaged. If I pause the movement, all detail is lost."  
  
I worked late into the night, when my new patron left with a promise to return at first light. If he was satisfied with my work, he gave no sign of it, merely picked up the data chip and left with a nod of acknowledgement.  
  
I worked hard for those stones. All that week, I spent every hour of daylight mixing pigments, laying colour onto canvas. In the evenings, when the natural light failed, I made more sketches of the woman's hands, facial details, and particularly her eyes. Always I returned to the eyes that were proving so elusive to my brush.  
  
By the third day, it was obvious I was not going to capture the essence of this woman from the damaged image I was working with.  
  
"The holo-image is degrading each time I activate it," the man admitted. "It's why you must make a good job of this portrait. Soon, it will be all I have."  
  
I had not asked the man his name, nor had he volunteered it. I had assumed from the beginning that his business was outside the law. How else had he acquired those gems?  
  
"Tell me about her," I said. "What is her name?"  
  
He considered for a moment before replying with obvious reluctance.  
  
"Kathryn. Her name is Kathryn."  
  
The sound of her name was as foreign to me as her skin tones were to my palette.  
  
I was intrigued by the circumstances of this odd pairing. The woman, Kathryn, was obviously a person of some authority. Her uniform, posture, and general air of confident assurance were at odds with the barbaric appearance of the man who was willing to give so much for a mere painted image of her.  
  
"Have you known her long?" I asked.  
  
"A few years." His voice was toneless.  
  
"She's an intriguing subject, but there's so much detail missing from the holo-image. I'm going to need some assistance with this portrait."  
  
Reluctantly, his eyes turned away from the painting. "What do you want to know?"  
  
"Tell me about her. The way she moves, her interests, her family, her likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, her work – anything to help me build a more complete picture in my mind."  
  
He began slowly, each word carefully weighed and considered. Gradually, during the course of the day, he began to describe this woman to me. I listened to his voice that softened to a whisper as he related trivial incidents of his experiences with her. He was careful to tell me nothing of their relationship, and from that I learned much. It became clear that she was his military commander and a leader of great strength and purpose: a private, enigmatic woman who kept those around her at a distance. That he felt the strongest bond to her, I had no doubt, but there was a vagueness to his words when he spoke of her behaviour towards him.  
  
By the fourth day, I was beginning to see this woman I was painting. My brush worked almost independently, layering on colour and tones to the accompaniment of the man's voice as he described the minute details of her daily life.  
  
In mid-afternoon, I was about to suggest a break for refreshment, when the studio suddenly shook violently, and the sound of a distant explosion thundered across the city.  
  
The war had reached our capital. My patron went outside as the studio reverberated to a second and then a third explosion.  
  
He was agitated when he returned a few minutes later.  
  
"They're attacking the northern gate."  
  
"They've tried it before," I replied. "Last spring, they bombarded us for two weeks before the Governor's army pushed them back to the mountains."  
  
"I've heard rumours they have a much bigger force this time," he said. "They mean to take the city."  
  
"Are they your people?" I asked. I had wondered since his arrival at my studio, if he might have been a spy.  
  
He looked up sharply. "No, of course not. My people are... far away from this city."  
  
"So how did you come to be here?" I laid out bread and fruit and a jug of wine on the table littered with pigment jars and smears of hardened paint.  
  
"I was shipwrecked in the mountains." He noted my expression of disbelief. "The cliffs are sheer to the sea. I was in a small craft, scouting for my ship, when my shuttle was wrecked in a storm."  
  
"Wouldn't your people have searched for you?"  
  
"I was taken a long way off course by the storm. I thought they would have found me, but..." He looked out through the window towards the harsh blue- white of the sky. He was about to add something when another explosion shook the studio. He coughed in the mist of fine paster dust that hung in the air and turned back to look at the portrait on my easel. "How much longer will it take?"  
  
"The painting is almost finished," I replied. "I will apply the protective sealant tonight. It needs a few hours to dry, but you should be able to take delivery tomorrow evening."  
  
"The city will be overrun by then," he said. "The attacking army has disrupter weapons that can break through the defences."  
  
"And our Governor has weapons that can stop them," I sat down at the table and poured wine into beakers as three more explosions raised more dust in quick succession.  
  
The man sat opposite me with obvious reluctance and sipped at his wine. The sound of shouted orders drifted through the open window amidst the dust. The rapid tramping of soldiers doubling through the streets pounded a steady rhythm that finally faded into the distance.  
  
"I need to take that painting away from here," he said into a sudden moment of silence.  
  
"Tomorrow morning. It should be dry enough by morning, if you handle it with care." I was reluctant to risk damage to my creation, but I too was becoming uneasy at the increasing intensity of the enemy bombardment. Our city had never before been attacked with such prolonged ferocity.  
  
I made a decision. "You can stay here tonight, if you like," I said.  
  
He nodded. "I'll need to collect my things from my lodgings. I'm leaving the city as soon as the painting is ready."  
  
He left when we had finished our meal. I watched him duck under the doorframe, with a last look back towards the portrait. And then he was gone, and another layer of dust drifted down onto the paint surface as more explosions shook the building.  
  
I finished the last few strokes of my brush, then applied the spray sealant beneath a dustsheet I'd rigged from a wooden frame. It wasn't perfect, but it kept the bigger particles from contaminating the canvas. There was an acrid smell of scorched stone as a blue haze of smoke drifted in through the open window, mixing with the fine white motes of plaster.  
  
Another, louder explosion rippled the stone floor beneath my feet. I heard shouts and screams from the street outside, and then...bright, blinding light enveloped me in soundless, numbing intensity, before I was pitched into sudden blackness to fall endlessly, choking on my own silent scream.  
  
I was told a rescue squad pulled me from the rubble of my studio three days later, but I have no recollection of the event.  
  
By the time I was released from the makeshift hospital, the invading forces had been ejected from the city and were retreating towards the sea. The streets around my studio had been reduced to an unrecognisable jumble of stone and timber. I stumbled around in the unfamiliar ruins, searching for a point of reference: something, anything that could give some indication of where my possessions lay beneath the rubble.  
  
Finally, I saw a piece of red cloth half buried under a cross beam. I recognised the geometric pattern of a neighbour's door curtain. Cradling my crushed hand, I began to climb awkwardly over the rubble, searching the area where I estimated my studio had been.  
  
I found the hole leading down to the cellar, where my rescuers had tunnelled down to me from the street level. The entire building had collapsed into the cellar space. I climbed down carefully into the dust and dark, acutely aware that my home could so easily have become my tomb.  
  
At first, I thought the room was filled with rubble, but then, as my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, I saw a low space where a falling door had wedged against the solid surface of my old studio table. I shone my borrowed torch into the space beneath the table. Splashes of bright blood red and gold spilled across the stone floor where paint had spilled from smashed jars and cans. Some were still whole: dented and damaged, but their contents intact. I snatched at the nearest containers, peering at the dusty labels.  
  
It was still there. The canister of moonstone blue pigment was battered almost flat, but when I shook it, the sound of those four priceless pebbles rattled within the damaged casing.  
  
Clutching enough wealth to build a new studio of my own, I turned to leave and stumbled over a piece of wood. I fell to my knees, cursing as my injured hand jarred against the stone floor. The torch fell as I grabbed at the table, and in its beam I saw a face, staring towards me from the space between the table legs. I reached in and pulled the canvas from amongst pieces of broken easel. The portrait was creased, with a small tear in one corner, but the subject was unmarked. The familiar, alien eyes of the woman gazed at me in the flat beam of the torch.  
  
I removed the canvas from its stretchers and rolled it awkwardly into a tube, then climbed out into the sunlit afternoon. Using a piece of uncrushed charcoal I found in the rubble, I scribbled a hurried message on a piece of stone. If my tattooed patron should return for his portrait, he would find directions to my temporary refugee shelter that had been set up under the city walls.  
  
He never did return. I still think of him sometimes, wondering what happened after he left my studio that afternoon, when the city walls were breached for the first time in a hundred years.  
  
I think of him now, on the day Bragos came to my studio. The man was most likely killed in the bombardment soon after he left for his lodgings. But as I look into the eyes of the portrait, I am uncertain. The romantic in me likes to imagine he was found by his Kathryn during that day of chaos and no longer needed the painting. Reality tells me it is unlikely. Whatever became of my patron, I never saw him again. But the portrait is his property, bought and paid for with those precious stones that gave me the life I enjoy today.  
  
I look at the woman's imperious gaze above that faint hint of a twisted smile, and feel her amusement. I have grown used to her presence over the years. She is the last thing I painted before my hand was irreparably damaged in the bombardment. And she is the only surviving remnant of my old, artist's life.  
  
She has been on my walls too long now, to move to Bragos's cold white palace. I will not part with her for a rich man's favour.  
  
End


End file.
